2017年十大网络热词 The Most Trending Chinese Internet Slang of 2017

Chinese authorities revealed the 10 most commonly used internet slangs of 2017 in December, noting that the popular words and phrases are the best linguistic representations of China's current cyber culture.

The selection, which was organized by China's National Language Resource Monitoring and Research Center, combed through linguistic data from the country's most popular forums, social media platforms, and online news portals, analyzing the collected information via its massive corpus of over 6 billion Chinese characters.

These ten buzzwords are:

1. 打call (beat a call, dǎ call)

“Beat a call” has become the most popular internet slang in 2017, with Chinese netizens using it to show approval and support for people, things, or events.In October, Xinhua released an article regarding the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in which it called for the public to “beat a call” for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era(为习近平中国特色社会主义思想打call).

2. 尬聊 awkward chat (gà liáo)

The phrase “awkward chat” refers to inevitable chats with boring people. It is used when the person you are talking with lacks good communication skills, or when your mind wanders off, and the talk comes to a dead end.

Two ancient poets’ unequal friendship turned out to be a goldmine for Chinese netizens when they discovered that Du Fu, China's “poet-sage” in the Tang Dynasty, had written 15 poems for his equally famous poet friend Li Bai, though the latter had seldom returned the favor.Many netizens have jokingly slashed Li for his “lack of conscience.” The phrase was quickly adopted as a way to taunt or criticize heartless people.

This weird phrase, used to convey ambivalence, goes back a long way to the Stephen Chow film All's Well, Ends Well (1992). In the film, Chow delivers this classic line to Hong Kong's ingenue-of-the-moment Maggie Cheung. It has since been reused as a way to describe an unexpected turn of events or to ridicule dramatic reversals in a story.

5. 皮皮虾,我们走! Let's go, mantis shrimp! (Pípíxiā, wǒmen zǒu)

It was used to express something amazing, is the culmination of different memes developing separately, but combining to form a "super-meme."

6. 扎心了,老铁 My heart was pricked (Laotie zhā xīn le,lǎo tiě )

The word “laotie” originates from northern Chinese dialect and means “good buddies,” while “pricked heart” means “hurting someone’s feeling.” The phrase was adopted on some online streaming websites and is now used to vent grievances to close friends.

7. 还有这种操作?And, what, this thing? (Hái yǒu zhè zhǒng cāozuò?")

Originating with the online video game community, this slang is used to criticize or praise something surprising, usually regarding video game rules.

操作 cāozuò means a kind of "operation," so this slang refers to a specific mechanic, and yet doesn't quite have the same ring to it when translated as, "And there's this kind of operation?"

8. 怼 lash out; take on (duì)

9. 你有freestyle吗? Do you have freestyle? (Nǐ yǒu freestyle ma?)

"Can you freestyle?" has become an immensely popular phrase on China's social network thanks to Chinese pop singer and actor Kris Wu. Wu, as a judge on a reality TV show The Rap of China, ach time Wu had to choose the winner, he had just one question for the contestants: "Can you freestyle?" when he had to choose the winner. The pop star's humorous catchphrase was quickly adopted by Chinese netizens. Many began to follow him and use "freestyle" wildly on social media platforms like WeChat and Sina Weibo.Now, "Do you have freestyle?" has morphed into other memes. Some internet users even adapt the buzzword into a variety of emojis, further promoting the use of "freestyle".

10. 油腻 oily (yóu nì)

“Oily” is used to describe middle-aged men who are rude, sloppy, and out of shape. The word first appeared on Chinese social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, and was later picked by netizens from a famous online article on how to avoid becoming an oily obscene middle-aged man.

The term emerged as a comedic insult, and like many of its kinds, an initially vulgar epithet became a self-ascribed identity, in a classic example of a group of middle-class youngsters who has no time for their personal life and care claiming the once derogatory term as their own.